Crown of Fire - Ed Greenwood [12]
The slim, handsome thief waved a hand with a theatrical flourish. "Granting all that-are we on our own in this?"
Elminster looked up at the ceiling of the spell chamber, where an old enchantment made the stars wink and glitter as they drifted across an illusory night sky. "The gods above know I am a busy man," he told the stars innocently, pretending not to hear the resulting snorts of the knights, and am beset at present with matters even weightier than spellfire-but I should not be overmuch surprised if I find myself sparing time for a charge over the hill or two, when my business takes me that way. What say ye, Storm?"
The bard inclined her head and patted the hilt of the well-used long sword scabbarded at her hip. "I, too, will do what I can-and there are my fellow Harpers along the way. One of them does nothing but wait for Shandril and Narm. To say nothing of Delg the dwarf, I'll be surprised if he has not caught up to them already. We will all of us do what we can."
As the knights nodded and started toward the gate, checking their weapons, Elminster added quietly to Rathan, "Ye might pray to Tymora that our efforts will be enough."
Torm rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me," he said, putting the back of his hand to his brow in a mock swoon. "'The future of all Toril hangs in the balance. Again."
Elminster raised one of his own eyebrows in a parody of the thief's own manner. "Of course."
Chapter 2
MUCH TALK, AND EVEN SOME
DECISIONS
Try as we may, none of us can be in all places at all times. Not even the gods can do that. So we do what we can and measure our success, if we are wise, by what our hearts tell us at the end of a day, and not what our eyes tell us of how much we have changed Faerun
Storm Silverhand
To Harp at Twilight
Year of the Swollen Stars
Their last glimpse of Thunder Gap, far behind, was blocked by dark, sinister winged shapes in the sky.
Narm watched them flapping out of the mountains, found his mouth suddenly dry, and swallowed with some difficulty.
"DeIg," he managed to croak. The dwarf did not even turn to see where he was pointing. "I've been ignoring them," Delg told him sourly. "It's easiest."
"Ignoring them? That's all?" Shandril asked incredulously, looking back at the dark, hunting shapes as they grew ever larger, ever closer.
"You've a bright scheme of some sort, lass?" The dwarfs woe was sharp as he hastened on, an errant skillet banging on metal somewhere inside his pack.
"Well, we've got to hide," Shandril said hotly. "I haven't spellfire enough to-"
"That's why I've been saving my breath and not stopping to look back," the dwarf said in dry tones. "It brings the trees closer, as fast as I can make them move… See the little dip ahead there? It's a ravine: the branches'll be thick, and there'll be a stream to hide our own noises – arguing with wise dwarves, for instance…"
Narm and Shandril exchanged glances, then hurried after the dwarf toward the ravine he'd indicated.
Only after they had reached cover did any of them speak again.
"What are they?" Narm's voice was low. He'd never seen such ugly things before-huge, fat, scaled things with bat wings, claws, and horselike heads that ended in two probing, twisting snouts. Each snout held sharp jaws; even down here Narm could smell the rotting reek of their breath.
"Foulwings," Delg said. "Well named, aye?"
Narm watched the heavy, ungainly things flap over them, wheel, and dart this way and that, searching along the road and the edges of the forest for signs of a maid, her man, and a dwarf. He shivered as a foulwing turned overhead, and the head of the robed and hooded rider pivoted, scanning the forest. For a moment it seemed that the foulwing rider looked right at him. Fear rose in Narm. Frantically he searched his mind for some spell that wouldn't reveal their location to the foes above.
And then the foulwing wheeled in the air, belching and snorting angrily as its rider struck it cruelly with a metal goad. In the man's other hand, a wand glinted for a moment before he flew